Hey Ann Romney & Conservative Women- THANK a Feminist

I’ve had treatment the past two weeks and have largely not had the energy to fight this RIDICULOUS ‘Mommy Wars’ battle going on with the Hilary Rosen/Ann Romney remarks.

Oh I’ve had plenty to say, believe me…but when you’ve had an iv in your arm for a few days AND you have to fight with your disability company (wait, they are not my disability company YET…they simply took money out of my paycheck for years…but now that I need them we shall see if they are TRULY my disability company) AND raise two children while your husband works long hours…the absolute STUPIDITY on tv and radio has to wait.

But now that I’ve had some time to rest and the kids are off for the weekend and my husband is home, let me jump into the deep end: Ann Romney’s husband’s record on ‘women’s issues’ SUCKS and I have been a stay at home Mom AND a work out of the home Mom. Hilary Rosen has a very valid point when she questions if the Romney’s understand the average family:

Now let’s be clear on one thing. I have no judgements about women who work outside the home vs. women who work in the home raising a family. I admire women who can stay home and raise their kids full-time. I even envy them sometimes. It is a wonderful luxury to have the choice. But let’s stipulate that it is NOT a choice that most women have in America today.

Why does this even matter? It matters purely because Mitt Romney put the issue of his wife’s views squarely on the table.

You caught that, right? This is NOT a choice that most women have in America today. And she is RIGHT. I’m fighting like all hell for my disability because we NEED MY PAYCHECK. I do not have the luxury of being a stay at home mom right now, like I did when my son was first-born. And what of the women who do choose to work because they WANT to? The right attacked them as well:

What Hilary Rosen has exposed is a psychological fault line that separates those women who simply oppose unfair gender-based barriers in education or employment or elsewhere from other women who actually despise and disrespect those females who choose to be full-time wives and mothers, instead of entering the workforce.

These “anti-gender” women have it in for anyone who embraces her femininity, maternal instincts and capacity to nurture as their highest priority — postponing or passing up other laudable opportunities to work at, say, a law firm or as a marketing executive. They despise the notion that some women may indeed be drawn — instinctively and happily — toward creating special and loving environments in which to raise their children, while spending all their available time sustaining and enriching those environments and those children.

Apparently Dr. Asshat, I mean Dr. Ablow, doesn’t realize that Rosen, and myself, were both stay at home moms at one point. And that we both aspired to raise our children and climb the corporate ladder. Something our male counterparts do daily yet no one blinks an eye. We do not DESPISE women who are drawn to be mothers full-time. WE HAVE STAYED HOME TOO, BY CHOICE.

Why is it when Rick Santorum suspends his campaign to actually be a father, the press fawns all over him as though no man has ever put his career before fatherhood before? Why is it that no one has asked Mitt Romney or Barack Obama why they didn’t choose to stay at home and raise their children instead of running for office and spending so much time away from their families?

And why is it that the same side exploding to defend Ann Romney didn’t say a word when Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann made the opposite choice, and chose work over being that Mom who stays home?

I’ll tell you why…because it’s just fine for conservative women to discover feminism and all the wonders it has given them, but a progressive woman is totally not allowed to discuss this on national tv- let alone live it- hence the holier than thou Right shall smite her down to where she belongs! Which is, apparently, the kitchen or starching Mitt’s really stiff looking shirts. Apparently only conservative women can be trusted to make the choice to work or stay home to raise kids, because only they are smart enough (guided by their husbands and God) to choose wisely. We feminists can’t be trusted with such a big choice, because heaven forbid we actually aspire to do something amazing like cure a disease or follow our dreams, and that might mean we don’t have kids or, even worse, we don’t get married.

Yup, those conservatives can’t possibly trust us smart women to do anything without a man…why, that might lead to the downfall of society! Or worse, them having to make their own damn sandwich.

Frankly the Right has a helluva lot of nerve to attack Rosen’s comments when they are waging an all out war on women and attempting to turn us all into Mrs. Romney. And please, spare me the ‘there is no real war on women’ crap because we females have been allowed to attend school and learn now for some time and we’re capable of calling bullshit when we see it.

We’re also capable of THANKING the feminists who came before us, giving us the CHOICE to be whatever we want to be- from a mother to a scientist to an elected official.

Maybe that is something conservative women should try, instead of fighting us. THANK your feminist sisters. Thank them for allowing you to take that job outside the home when your husband gets laid off. Thank them for allowing you to pick up that part-time job while you home school your kids.Thank them for helping to push through legislation that will get them equal pay for equal work, and legislation that will support their needs while they attempt to juggle parenthood and having a career. And when you are done thanking them, take a step back and realize how different they all are.

Some are choosing to have children later in life, so they can see their dreams of becoming a teacher or farmer or doctor realized first. Others are choosing to have children as they attend school, and then go after their dream career while their partner stays home to raise the kids. And still others are choosing to remain childfree, instead focusing their lives on the many other things they have dreamt of forever.

Hilary Rosen and I have both been raising our children and working in politics, huh…sounds rather similar to Ann Romney who is on my tv right now, stumping for her husband.

The so-called right is not waging an all out war on you so-called feminists. You entitled, elitist ladies of the left, with your fog, your amphetamines and your pearls wouldn’t know a real feminist even if she walked up behind you and bit you on your mortgage-laden, merger-riddled asses…

I could go on and on and on. There is the rhetoric but there is also PILES of legislation attempting to turn back the clock so that the original feminist who fought their asses off, and in some cases were attacked, threatened, and worse for demanding equal rights are being disrespected by these so called conservative feminists simply enjoying what real feminists have worked so hard for. .. that is IF their husbands and their GOD allows for it.

And for the record Dale, I don’t wear pearls, I don’t take amphetamines I can see clearly and those real feminists are still working hard and I am proud to call them my friends.

When a person living on inherited money stands there telling me all about how they understand the plight of working people like me I take that remark with several grains of salt. Ann Romney certainty does “work” rearing a fairly large family but that isn’t the same kind of “work” engaged in a daily basis by the millions of women in this country rearing kids & struggling to earn enough money to pay the bills.

Why can’t Mitt Romney & the people who support him came out & acknowledged simple reality, “Ann has been able to stay at home because we have been blessed with a large income & we are grateful” Why insult the intelligence of millions of people? Why not acknowledge that no, the Romney lifestyle isn’t just like us?

Erin, I wonder what Ann thinks of her husband’s contradictory stance on this issue? I don’t agree with the man’s platform on many, many issues but his apparent willingness to back off on his real opinions in order to appease his party is most disturbing.

Universal health Care was good enough to force on the Commonwealth of MA but it’s not okay for the nation?

Stay at home mothers are valued “working mothers” … unless they are poor?

You said it better than I could. While I am not (yet) a mother, I am a woman. The way the conservative politicians think about women (or at least say they think) is really, truly scary. This is 2012 people.